Licenses

Any
grant of access to LRs should ideally include not only the right to read the
relevant content but also to allow transformative uses, dissemination and
distribution of such resources and their derivatives, according to the needs
and policies of LR owners and users. To limit the complexity of licensing, a
range of recommended license setups are provided by META-SHARE in the form of
templates for the members to choose from.

The
META-SHARE model licensing scheme, with a firm orientation towards the creation
of an openness culture and the relevant ecosystem for LRs, is organised on the
following axes:

Creative
Commons licences (starting with Creative Commons Zero (CC-0) and all possible
combinations along the CC differentiation of rights of use) are the first level
of legal machinery applied.

A
second layer includes META-SHARE Commons Licences, a fully developed CC-based
licensing tool that allows META-SHARE members and Extraneous Depositors to make
their resources available to other network members only.

The
third legal layer is a set of licenses that allow use and exploitation of the
Resources while permitting the LR Owner to have full control over the Resource
distribution. These “No Redistribution” licences will effectively help get
“closed” resources safely out to the community.

A
set of legal document templates (non licences) is offered that is designed to
help all stakeholders (resource owners, distributors and end-users) work in a
friendly and transparent environment. These include a Depositor's Agreement
(DA), a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the Network members and a Service
Level Agreement (SLA). The DA is currently available, while the MoU and the accompanying
SLA are under revision.

The
following issues should be taken into account while using the licences

These
ready-to-use licensing schemes are as quick and easy to apply as possible, in
particular for new resources. Do not hesitate to refer to the META-SHARE IPR
Helpdesk facility (helpdesk-legal@meta-share.eu) for any assistance you may have in
understanding, choosing and using any of these licence and other legal tools.

The
rights of use of the resource, any possible restrictions, as well as rights and
restrictions on the original raw data are under the control and responsibility
of the resource owners. The repository in which the resource resides acts
mainly as a facilitator for the search-and-get procedure while providing
guidelines and metadata curation activities.

Metadata
elements regarding rights of use, availability and distribution are among the
mandatory elements of the minimal metadata schema and are harvested by the
central META-SHARE servers so that users (essentially language resource
consumers) can promptly understand what they are allowed to do with a specific
resource. Please always refer to these metadata before using any of the
resources on META-SHARE.

According
to the META-SHARE MoU, resources should ideally be open or shared at least for
research purposes. The copyright conditions of the initial raw resource should
be known, and in any case the Depositor should have all rights that allow for
distribution through a network like META-SHARE. Likewise, processed and
derivative resources (annotated web or other text, lexica extracted from
parallel text, etc.) should ideally be open at least for academic/research
purposes.

Based
on these assumptions and guidelines, the following sets of licensing templates
are proposed:

META-SHARE
No Redistribution Set: covers all expected combinations of licencing attributes
excluding the distribution of the original resource(s). Before using any of the META-SHARE Commons licences,
please contact the Helpdesk for assistance. We will provide you with guidance
as to which licence may be the most appropriate for you and how you could
implement it.

META-SHARE
Reseller Agreement: a special deposition agreement that allows only for
commercial for-a-fee distribution of the original, should the LR provider(s)
wish to do so.

META-SHARE
Memorandum of Understanding: the MoU contains the points of agreement among
META-SHARE Members and is accompanied by the Service Level Agreement describing
the functional, technical and legal specifications that META-SHARE network
nodes should adhere to in order to provide a robust and reliable service.